


Keep Going

by RemainNameless



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, It may start like angst but it's fluff I swear it, M/M, Spoilers, TAKES PLACE IMMEDIATELY AFTER TONIGHT'S EPISODE SO SPOILERS, but it also starts really angsty, sort of, this is my post-episode therapy ngl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:13:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemainNameless/pseuds/RemainNameless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post 2x11</p><p>Stiles gets kidnapped by Gerard. He doesn't take it well. Derek saves him (because it's his turn this time).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Going

One second he’s fucking _high_ and then everything is black and swallowing him away. Doesn’t feel it, doesn’t know what happens, he’s just crumpling to the ground only _not_ , there’s someone—some _thing_ —catching him. And fucking God, something tight like a vice on his throat and no matter how much he tries to scream, the sound doesn’t come out. Wouldn’t be heard over the panic, the chaos unfurling in the black like smoke.

When it washes over him, he realizes that he’d been right; it’s only Hell.

 

That feeling, like every single breath, every single milliliter of air, is _fighting_ against him when he tries to inhale, it’s just _worse_. He’d been toeing the line before, between gasping and alright, but now, it’s all gone. Any last feeling that he might survive. Can’t fucking _breathe_ and his body doesn’t know how to stop trying, it’s fighting it so hard—

“Stop that now, or I’ll have to paralyze you again. Or maybe I should just let you black out. Don’t want to waste what venom I have.”

He can barely hear the voice over the wet gasping sounds ripping from his throat and the numbness settling into his body and then he’s gone again.

 

He comes to again and he’s tied up, gagged, blindfolded, floor cold against his cheek. And then it’s the same. Panic filling his throat, his lungs, his chest. Face wet and contorted as he _tries_ , tries so hard to just _breathe_ , just to get in some air around the rag in his mouth, but every breath pulls it further into his mouth. _It’s impossible_ , he realizes, and then, he just stops trying.

 

Again.

 

Again.

 

Again.

 

The sixth time it happens, he figures out that he’s being water-boarded by his own panic. 

The thought makes him laugh, actually, because it’s just so _ironic_ that he’s trying so hard to breathe that he can’t, and he laughs and he laughs, only that doesn’t help at all, just makes it worse. 

It isn’t even remotely funny, but he’s still laughing.

Until something hard and sharp (boot, maybe?) slams into his side, and he’s choking and crying and gasping and falling back into Hell. 

 

Again.

 

Again.

 

Again.

 

(He stops counting.)

 

And then—

_If you’re going through Hell,_

**keep going.**

 

So he holds on. Manages to keep himself in his body. He _keeps going_. In loops, in circles, in dark spirals. It feels like this shape, these weird swirls, but he can’t remember where he saw it, just pictures his bones breaking and reforming until he’s contorted into a triple spiral.

And it’s all in his head. 

Pain and panic and fear and the fact that he’s in Hell right now. That’s _where he is_. He’s dead and he can deal with that, has been preparing for this moment, wrote his dad a letter and everything, an apology, an explanation, so this isn’t some _surprise_. He just didn’t think it would hurt so much. This _nothingness_. Can’t see, can’t move, can only hear the rushing of his own blood in his ears, the bolting gallop of his heart. The mechanical gasp-wheeze of his lungs. 

And then.

And _then_ —

“Oh. _Oh_.” 

Two syllables that echo in his purgatory, like stars in the black. 

Stars gone supernova because there’s _heat_ , so hot it’s cold, so cold it’s numb, spreading through his shoulder and suddenly, the stars spread across the darkness until their edges meet, blinding for a moment and when his eyes adjust, there are walls and a floor and God—

No, he’s still in Hell because now he’s got to save this sour grape of an Alpha. It’s just a new part of his Hell, throwing him back into the cycle of trying to hold himself above the surface when everyone else’s pain is weighing him down.

“Your arm— God, your _arm_. You’re hit and I can’t— I can’t cut it off, I’m sorry.” His chest lurches as he tries to slow himself down so he can help or something. “Jeez, not this again. I _can’t_ —“ 

“ _Stiles_. Stop moving, it’s okay. I’m fine. You’re gonna be okay to, I just need you to _stop moving_.” 

He stills, but not because Derek told him to, not because of the odd thing (almost like _worry_ ) in his voice, but because the black veins in his forearm are moving, pulsing, like there’s something ugly and dark making its way to his heart. Wolfsbane didn’t look like this, didn’t have a life of its own, didn’t have _energy_. Like he’s absorbing something. _How_.

The inky lines, the tattoo-like map of his veins, lead away under Derek’s pushed-up sleeve. He wants to see where they lead, trace them, but then Derek pulls in this long, shuddering breath and pulls away, falls onto his backside, and curls into himself. Pulls his knees to his chest and makes a fortress with his forearms so Stiles can’t see his face and his shoulders are _shaking_. Trembling. Like he’s this frightened, wounded animal who’s just breathing deep and long, visibly expanding and contracting with each lungful.

And the thing is, Stiles feels _alright_. In control. _Alive_. By some miracle. But he’s had too much experience to believe in miracles.

He stalks towards Derek, touches his unmarked arm. “You okay, buddy? Because I think we need to talk about the werewolf voodoo-Xanax thing. It’s kinda freaky shit. I seriously thought I was going to have to cut off your arm again. Well, for the first time. Only you look like you’re freaking out so maybe we’ll talk about amputation some other time? When you’re ready, I mean. When you’re ready.”

This makes Derek’s shoulders shake more, and he starts making this weird, weird noise, like he’s choking or something, but then his face rises up from behind his arms and maybe it’s melodramatic to compare it to a sunrise, but that’s what it _is_. He’s got this wide, bright smile opening up his face with _dimples_ and everything, and his eyes are crinkled and _oh_. 

He’s laughing.

Like, _laughing_. 

And he presses his face into the crook of his elbow, shaking his head a little, then peeks his head up. One of his eyebrows is raised above the other in this little curl of disbelief and it’s so far from his normal broody face that Stiles just kind of falls over, nearly misses, and has to flail to catch himself. 

This is apparently too much for Derek’s psychotic break; he falls onto his back, cracking up in a way that can only be described as surreal. Head thrown back, belly heaving, and that _sound_. There might even be some rolling around. And then he seems to get ahold of himself a little, only to curl up on his side, laughing even harder. _What is going on_?

“Dude. You are rotflcoptering right now. _Rotflcoptering_. Answer me seriously — and no judgement here — _are you on drugs_?” He gives Derek a moment to rein himself in before crawling over and giving him a very _serious Sheriff_ look. One he’s been on the receiving end of a lot so he knows it works.

“I’m sorry, it’s hysteria, I—“ a chuckle escapes his mouth “—I just can’t—“ He laughs again and Stiles takes him in, the way his mouth opens unevenly and shows too many teeth, only it’s more dorky and endearing than scary, and how eyes are squeezed shut, wet with tracks down his cheeks.

“Are you seriously laughing so hard you’re crying? _What even?_ ” But the thing is, Stiles is grinning and he thinks that even if there were a vaccine for it, Derek’s laughter would still be contagious because it’s just so….So _something_. 

“I know, I—“ neither of them is really able to hold it in “—I haven’t laughed this hard in—“ he breaks down, almost _giggling_ “—in _years_.” 

“You’re _crying_ ,” is all Stiles can get out before he collapses into it, clutching at Derek’s shoulder because he can’t breathe again, only this time, it’s alright. 


End file.
